Absolutely Charming
I love this.
(Via Erin.)
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Egg-face Itzkoff
At least, if he has even one nonzombie-devoured brain cell left, I’m guessing he’s a little embarrassed by the general consensus about that infamous review. Some notable reactions, which give me the joy of seeing people stick up for YA and children’s literature in general:
- Margo Lanagan urges book throwing and greater respect for the audience in question.
- The ever-insightful Carrie shares an E.B. White quote about never writing down for kids.
- Stephany Aulenback says it beautifully, the way she always does.
- Matthew Cody weighs in with a short rant.
- Ed Champion takes Itzkoff to task.
- Ron Hogan urges the NYT to employ a more savvy SF critic.
- And Leila has a whole round-up of responses too, in case I missed any.
SF Geek Fu Needed
Someone in the household who is not me is working on a paper and is trying to remember the term John Clute (or possibly Roz Kaveney) included in the Encyclopedia of Fantasy that is identical to the term used in Holland for when dikes are constructed and water is pumped out that describes the land that’s left behind. Help!
Nevermind — found it: Polder!
Stormy Weather
It’s hard to get real sleep when Emma the Dog is enduring tornado-warning conditions. We’re fine and I think even our trees made it (must get that one trimmed this spring!), but I’m taking the day off from the blogger blog to yawn and finish up my Cybils jury reading. In the meantime, here’s a weather story with meteorologists disagreeing, pretty much my favorite bloodsport.
Tuesday Hangovers
- It’s shaping up to be a busy week and there’s the dreaded critical thesis and the novel revision and etc. going on too. So, yeah, still behind on email. All you in voting states, get out the vote.
- Claire Light is hosting the Carl Brandon Society’s new recommended reading list of speculative fiction by black authors, in honor of Black History Month.
- Jeff VanderMeer talks to Greg Frost about Shadowbridge (including some reaction to the recent John Clute review).
- Go wish the InKY Reading Series a happy fourth birthday on Friday night; Frank X Walker, Janna McMahan, and Emily Bonden will read, with music provided by Joe Manning.
- The latest issue of Lone Star Stories is live, featuring new fiction by Ekaterina Sedia and Tim Pratt and poetry by Liz Hand.
- Leila Roy loves Vermont College-alum Liz Gallagher’s debut, The Opposite of Invisible. It’s sitting very near the top of my stack of Books to Read as Soon as the CT Draft is Done (right beneath Wit’s End and The Shadow Year and a whole bunch of Tiptree stuff).
- Austin illustrates Lewis Hyde’s The Gift.
- Updated: Dana’s inspirational voting message. More, please.
Dance Off!
The only way to lick one’s sadness over missing AWP after finding out that there was also an Anthropologie sale on…
Sunday Hangovers
- Beverly Cleary at 91.
- And another great: Judy Blume at the Telegraph. (Check out the photo; she is the Tina Turner of YA.)
- Forgotten novelist Theodora Keogh. (Via Maud.)
- A piece on cinematographer (and Ingmar Bergman collaborator) Gunnar Fischer.
- Why books take so long to come out.
- Charles Simic gets the Solomon treatment; baiting him on the burglary at Robert Frost’s house: Yes, the kids are accused of burning his furniture for heat and leaving puddles of vomit on the living-room floor. Do you see that as any kind of symbol of where American culture is now? No. In Frost’s day, too, awful things went on in the countryside. There were nasty things happening in remote villages. There’s that poem where there is the skeleton of the ex-lover of the mistress of the house in the attic.
Dept. of Gimme a F*&!ing Break
As someone whose subway rides tend to resemble scenes from an “Evil Dead” movie, in which I am Bruce Campbell dodging zombies who have had all traces of their humanity sucked out of them by a sinister book — not the “Necronomicon,” but “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” — I sometimes wonder how any self-respecting author of speculative fiction can find fulfillment in writing novels for young readers. I suppose J. K. Rowling could give me 1.12 billion reasons in favor of it: get your formula just right and you can enjoy worldwide sales, film and television options, vibrating-toy-broom licensing fees, Chinese-language bootlegs of your work, a kind of limited immortality (L. Frank Baum who?) and — finally — genuine grown-up readers. But where’s the artistic satisfaction? Where’s the dignity?
Trust me when I say that many of us think that zombies of the brain-sucking variety have long since shown up on your subway ride.
I realize that he’s probably just trying to be cute here. Sadly, the only real counterargument offered in the review itself is basically that you can put all kinds of crazy stuff in books for kids. I’m also pretty curious as to whether he’s read enough YA to declare something "one of the most imaginative young adult novels of the post-Potter era."
Though, in this case, I actually agree and am glad to see Un Lun Dun getting some love.
And this is interesting — a plug for Nine Hundred Grandmothers is always a good thing. (Via Scott Edelman.)
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Friday Hangovers
- Settling in for a weekend of critical thesis work, reading, and scribbling, with a possible break in there to go see a movie or something fun. Also, you know you’re a stinky grown-up when your to-do list includes "drop off vacuum cleaner at the repair guy’s." It is gray and windy outside today in a very satisfyingly winter way.
- 1940s circus photos. (Via Dave. I needed that; thanks.) And, by the by, if you ever get a chance to poke around in the library at Circus World in Baraboo, Wisconsin, do it. They’ve got some amazing original circus photos there.
- The Brown Bookshelf is kicking off its Twenty-Eight Days Later celebration of children’s literature during Black History Month with Christopher Paul Curtis.
- Tacithydra has an important question about pronunciation.
- Carolyn See seems to really like Meg Rosoff’s What I Was, but isn’t the review oddly full of summary?
- Hannah really liked R.A. Nelson’s Breathe My Name.
- Tamora Pierce’s recommended reference books for slang.
- Steve Martin in Smithsonian mag.
- In case you ever wanted to become insane: this revision technique seems like it would help. Wowza.
- Carolyn is reporting live from AWP.
- Tempest Bradford interviews Justine Larbalestier (ahem) and Ekaterina Sedia.
- J.L. Bell: Why Western High Art Disdains Speech Balloons.
- I believe 2008 may now be the official year of Nicola Tesla. Prepare for his return.
- And a silly quiz behind the cut:
…
Eternal Mysteries
Jeff Ford is the best, clearly, but he’s topped himself with today’s interactive post, which presents a mystery: Which cat is pissing on the X-Box — Kaiba, BeBe Del Grito, or Fat Head — and why? The person who most convincingly answers this question can win a free galley of his next novel, The Shadow Year.
Even if you’re not in it to win it, this is the best post since ever.